How liberal or conservative is your state rep?

Political scientists have long used roll call votes cast by members of the U.S. Congress to plot the legislators on the Liberal-Conservative dimension along which most legislative politics in our nation’s capitol (as well as in Austin) now takes place. Here, drawing on all 999 non-lopsided roll call votes held during the combined 2011 regular and first special legislative sessions, I provide similar information for the members of the Texas House of Representatives, with particular focus on the 37 representatives from the 10-county Houston metropolitan region. Details on the methodology employed for the analysis and coding are provided here.

This analysis allows us to rank in order all of the members of the Texas House of Representatives from most Liberal (1) to most Conservative (149) based on their roll call vote behavior, as well as to compare members of the each party with each other (i.e., Democrats to other Democrats and Republicans to other Republicans). In the latter case, we can assess the extent to which specific Democrats are more or less liberal than their colleagues, and the degree to which specific Republicans are more or less conservative than the other members of the Republican delegation. In all cases, it is important to keep in mind that this methodology is based entirely on the representative’s observed roll call vote behavior and does not take into account the myriad of other activities (which are much more difficult, if not impossible in many cases, to reliably observe) legislators engage in.

Every Texas House Democrat is significantly more liberal than every Texas House Republican during 2011. Compared to the whole Texas House Democratic Party delegation, the 14-strong Houston-area Democratic Party delegation is noticeably liberal in its voting behavior, with nine Houston Democrats among the party’s more liberal members but only two among its more conservative members. The complete data and rankings for all 149 Texas House members can be found here.

The most liberal representative in the Houston area delegation is Jessica Farrar, followed immediately by Armando Walle. Farrar’s voting record on the House floor in 2011 locates her as the fourth most liberal member of the Texas House, and significantly more liberal than 29 of her 48 Democratic colleagues, not to mention all 100 Republicans (Speaker Joe Straus does not normally cast roll call votes). Walle was the fifth most liberal representative in the 2011 Texas House, and noticeably more liberal than 25 of his fellow Democrats.

Another group (seven total), ranging from Ana Hernandez Luna as the eighth most liberal to Boris Miles as the 21st most liberal, occupies the remaining portion of the liberal side of the Democratic Party’s liberal-conservative spectrum. Within the party, local legislators Senfronia Thompson (ranked 26th), Hubert Vo (28th), and Alma Allen (29th) find themselves in the center. In the more conservative wing of the party are only two area Democrats, Scott Hochberg in the 31st position and Craig Eiland. Eiland is the legislature’s third most conservative Democrat (46th), and possesses a voting record that places him as significantly more conservative than all but seven of his 48 Democratic copartisans.

The 23-member Houston-area Republican delegation roughly reflects the statewide delegation in terms of its ideological diversity. At the conservative end of the spectrum, ranked 141st, Randy Weber is the ninth most conservative member of the Texas House (and the most conservative Houston-area representative), with a voting record that is significantly more conservative than that of 73 of his fellow 99 Republican House members. Following Weber among the most conservative Republicans are Brandon Creighton (139th), James White (135th), Ken Legler (133rd), Dennis Bonnen (129th), Allen Fletcher (123rd), and William Callegari (120th).

A large contingent of Houston-area Republicans is located within the ideological center of the Republican Party. Note this does not signify that these representatives are necessarily ideologically moderate, rather only that they are in the middle of the ideological road among Texas House Republicans in 2011. This nine-member group ranges from Debbie Riddle (113th) to Larry Taylor (86th).

The final group of area Republicans has voting records that make them more moderate than between one-third and a little more than two-thirds of their fellow House Republicans. It is crucial to recall that the broader inter-party data indicate that not a single Texas Republican House member is a “liberal.” In fact, the least conservative Texas House Republican (Aaron Peña of Edinburg) is substantially more conservative than the most conservative House Democrat (Tracy King of Batesville). The chasm that divides the two parties in the Texas House can be graphically seen in this figure. However, these data do indicate that the members of this final group (especially those in the second sub-group) are significantly more moderate in terms of their ideological roll call voting record than a noteworthy share of their fellow House Republicans. The first sub-group consists of a set of legislators including John Otto (77th), Sarah Davis (75th), Beverly Woolley (70th), Wayne Smith (69th), and John Otto (68th) who are more moderate than at least one-third (but less than one-half) of their Republican colleagues.

The two most moderate Republicans in the Houston area are Rob Eissler (54th) and John Davis (53rd). Only recent party-switchers Aaron Peña (2010), Allan Ritter of Nederland (2010), and Charles “Chuck” Hopson of Jacksonville (2009) have less conservative voting records than Davis and Eissler within the Republican caucus. Davis’ voting record is significantly less conservative than 81 of his fellow Republicans while Eissler’s is significantly less conservative than 79.

Overall, a wide range of ideological perspectives are represented by the Houston-area Texas House delegation, with the very liberal Jessica Farrar balanced by the very conservative Randy Weber at opposing ends of the Liberal-Conservative dimension. This variation is also present at the intra-party level, especially within the Republican Party, where co-existing within the region’s Republican delegation were representatives who are among the state party’s most conservative (e.g., Randy Weber and Brandon Creighton) and least conservative (John Davis, Rob Eissler) members.

Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s Fellow in Political Science as well as the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.

I’m not sure that using roll-call voting as the basis is valid – unless the bills being voted on were single-issue in nature, and were not “deals” made between legislators. Too often the bills are conglomerations of issues and
you have to for or against based on what else is in the bill.

The gap between Craig Eiland and John Davis is very substantial and significant.

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